Musicians playing stringed instruments such as guitars and banjos typically produce sound by picking the strings with a plastic (or metal) pick held between a thumb and finger. This holding arrangement fails to effectively couple the mass of the player's hand to the pick, and thus places a limit on the loudness available for loud passages, particularly with an acoustic instrument. Furthermore, the continued stress of full dependancy on the thumb/finger grip can be fatiguing, and/or the pick can unintentionally shift to an undesired position or even totally escape the player's grasp and drop, thus degrading and/or interrupting the musical performance, especially when corrective action demands the use of the player's other hand.